We are pleased to feature a guest blog post by Tom Suhrbur. Tom grew up in a union family in Cicero, Illinois. He received a BA and MA in U.S. history at the UIC and a Certificate of Advanced Studies in labor history from NIU. Tom is co-author of a book "Union Brotherhood, Union Town: The History of the Chicago Carpenters' Union, 1863-1987." He also taught social studies for 17 years. His last teaching job was at Geneva HS (Illinois). He is a recently retired union organizer for the Illinois Education Associationand is currently the Vice-President of the Illinois Labor History Society.

Governor Rauner, ALEC and the Koch Brothers have teamed up to gut worker protections in Illinois. The Rauner Turnaround Agenda is designed to follow the strategy used in Wisconsin and Indiana to gut worker protections in the name of worker and local government rights.

The good news is that the "Turnaround Agenda" is meeting stiff resistance throughout Illinois, with only 46 local governments taking up the resolution and only 22 passing it. Even more telling, 15 of the 22 areas that passed the resolution have a population of less than 7,000 people.